The cracking of underfill material that encapsulates solder balls joining an I/C chip to a substrate often leads to electrical failures. These cracks may be developed during assembly or during thermal cycling (either reliability testing or field cycles). These cracks will increase in length as the electronic package experiences an increasing number of thermal cycles. The propagation of these cracks has been known to cause electrical fails in copper lines and C4 joints. Typically, the solution to this problem is to avoid generating cracks in the first place. However, normal variability in assembly conditions may cause cracks to be formed. As electronic packages are exposed to higher temperatures and stress in lead-free solder applications, the opportunity to cause cracks increases.